PAS:Taking Care of Nana, Part 1
COVID-19. The deadly disease that circled the globe over a year-long period starting in 2019 was rumored to have been started as a bio-weapon by the Chinese government. It's origin was discovered to be a government-funded lab, funded in part by the US Government, to do gain-of-function research... research to make naturally occurring animal viruses more infectious among humans.
The disease spread rapidly around the world in the first few months and when the first wave had passed, there were 759 million cases around the world with 6.87 million deaths. Luckily, scientists were able to determine how the virus infected the human body and developed multiple vaccines using Messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.
An mRNA vaccine gives cells instructions for how to make the S protein found on the surface of the COVID-19 virus. After vaccination, the body's muscle cells begin making the protein pieces and showing them on cell surfaces. This causes the body to create antibodies. These antibodies are used to help clear out the virus once someone becomes infected.
Once the protein pieces are made, the cells break down the instructions and get rid of them. The mRNA in the vaccine doesn't enter the nucleus of the cell, where DNA is kept.
As time wore on, the virus mutated, with future strains becoming less and less deadly, but still spreading rapidly. Doctors had found that the immunizations waned over time, too. So new variations of the vaccines were developed and used as boosters.
However, with the vaccines' rapid development and release needed to save lives, the vaccine itself caused side-effects that were unknown, until the vaccine was widely released. One side-effect, which affected about one one-thousandth of one percent of the population that received it, caused Persistent Arousal Syndrome... or PAS. Over two thousand people in the United States alone were left to suffer.
While PAS did affect both genders, it was far more common in women and included symptoms such as tingling in the genital areas, vaginal lubrication, unpredictable or even spontaneous orgasms, and under extreme duress, unpredictable and wild behavior.
Doctors have been unable to determine how the vaccine causes PAS and their treatment options to date have been unsuccessful. As of this writing, there is no treatment nor a cure.
Case File: Janice Caplan... a sixty-five-year-old grandmother.
*****
It was Sunday night, January 22nd, 2023. Evan sighed as he put on his medical mask and grabbed his laptop bag. He was headed over to his grandmother's house for another week's visit. He wished he knew how long this was going to last. It was starting to wear on both his sister and himself.
It wasn't that they didn't like their grandmother. But the level of care she was needing was so much... so much more than they could give.
He looked at the clock as he headed out the door... 9:45pm. He'd be there at 10:00pm, just like always, to relieve his sister. They had week-long duty shifts that had lasted... well... since her symptoms first grew serious in September of 2021.
He slipped his mask off when he got in the car and called his girlfriend on the drive.
Cadence, his girlfriend, answered. "Hi honey."
"Hi babe. I'm heading over to my grandmother's and just wanted to see what you were up to."
"You're over at your grandmother's this week?" she asked, sounding a little annoyed.
"Yeah... Zoe's been there all week."
"Tell me you're still able to go to the party at Jasmine's on Wednesday?"
"I thought that was next Wednesday," he said, surprised. He knew there was going to be a fight now. He could feel it coming.
"No... I said the twenty-fifth." She was annoyed.
"I don't... I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "I'll see if Zoe will take the night for me."
"Yeah, right. Like she ever has before."
"I'm sorry, babe," he said, sincerely. "I really am. It's just... my grandmother needs so much of our attention nowadays."
"Can't you just put her into a facility or something?" she asked. "They have more experience taking care of older people. Certainly more than you two do."
"Babe... we've talked about this," he said. He was starting to get annoyed himself because it always seemed to be the same thing. They argued every time he had to do this. "Don't you understand? For one, we don't have the money. And two, this is not just an old lady needing to be watched. She has a severe medical condition."
"Exactly!" she said, as if that settled everything. "Tell me, Evan. Tell me what you're doing that some nurse's aid can't do."
Evan shook his head and looked out at the nighttime road ahead of him. There were very few cars on it this time of night. If she only knew what the medical condition was... if she only knew what he had to do to help his grandmother through it. She'd leave him for sure. And there was definitely no nurse's aid that was going to do what he had been forced to do for the last year and a half.
"I... I can't have this conversation with you every other week, Cadence," he said. "I'm sorry. But Zoe and I have to do this. If there was some other option, believe me, we would jump on it."
"Maybe I can come over and..."
"No!" he practically yelled, then calmed himself. There was no way she could get involved in this. No way. If his grandmother somehow got a hold of her... "You know with COVID still going around that's not a good idea. Seniors are far more susceptible to catching it."
There was a silent pause on the other end that seemed to last too long. "Just let me know about Wednesday, ok?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'll..." and the phone went dead. He took it from his ear and looked at it. Yeah, she hung up on him.
He knew this was hard on her, too, but he needed her. He needed some kind of sanity during all this. He found himself sometimes shaking in fear when she surprised him with a touch. He found himself comparing what she did with what his own grandmother did. It was all too much sometimes.
He drove the rest of the way in silence. He turned off the car when he pulled into his grandmother's driveway, pulling beside Zoe's car. He glanced at the clock before he got out... 9:56pm... perfect timing. Grabbing his computer bag, he unlocked her front door and walked in without even knocking.
"Nana, Zoe, I'm here," he called, but no one answered. "Hello?"
He heard some water splashing in the kitchen and went in to investigate. As he entered through the doorway, he was shocked. His grandmother, Nana, was bent over, one hand on the counter for balance, the other between her legs, obviously masturbating. And masturbating so furiously that she wasn't paying attention to the kitchen sink that was overflowing and splashing water to the floor.
"Nana, what the fuck?" he said as he set his computer bag down and rushed into the room, immediately turning off the water. "What the fuck are you doing? You're gonna flood the whole kitchen!" He reached into the hot water and pulled the drain plug, immediately pulling his hand out and grabbing a towel to dry it off.
"What's wrong with you!" he asked, angry, grabbing his grandmother's shoulders and pulling her up to stand in front of him. "Hello! Nana!" Her eyes were closed, her mouth open as waves of pleasure rolled over her body. He shook her a moment and it was enough to break her from her trance.
"Oh... Hi Evan," she smiled, looking at him with glassy eyes. The room reeked of sex. "When did you get home?"
"Just... come over here," he said, guiding her to one of the kitchen chairs. "Sit down."
"Oh, hey Evan," Zoe said, walking into the room from another archway. "What's going... oh shit!" she said, seeing the water all over the floor and counter top. She quickly opened a drawer, grabbed several towels, and threw them into the pools of water to clean it up.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Evan chastised her. "You know you can't leave her alone!"
"I was going to the bathroom," Zoe said, sopping up the water.
"No, you... you can't leave her alone for that long," he said loudly.
"I can't fucking shit?" she yelled back.
"No!"
"She didn't say anything about having an episode," Zoe yelled, trying to defend herself.
"Stop!" Nana yelled. "Stop!" When the two looked, she was rocking in the chair, her hands on her head, obviously very upset by their arguing.
They stopped yelling and just looked at her for moment. Finally, Evan walked to her. "Come here, Nana. You look kind of tired." He helped her stand and started guiding her towards her bedroom.
"Yeah... I am kinda tired," she agreed, her voice low. She smiled at them, looking weak and frail. "You are the best grandchildren ever. You know that? I'm glad you're taking care of me... and each other, you know, after your parents died."
"Just go lay down for now," he said as they reached her bedroom, guiding her inside. "I'll be in in a second to check on you, ok?" He watched his grandmother slide into the bed and lay down.
Evan mostly closed the door, leaving just a crack open so he could potentially hear her, as he left her alone for a moment, walking back into the kitchen. "Tell me that you at least got a fucking job interview today," he said as Zoe gathered her backpack and coat.
"No... how could I?" she said. "I had classes. Besides, you know no one's hiring during the pandemic. Most people our age are getting laid off."
"You know we need the God-damned money," he said, starting to get frustrated with her. It was like she didn't want to work. All she wanted to do was live off of him while he worked his ass off.